Marketplace: It's a small-car world

Shoddy products and shady businesses: these were the enemies of CBC-TV's Marketplace, a half-hour program that stood up for the Canadian consumer. Beginning in 1972, Stompin' Tom Connors sang the theme as hosts Joan Watson and George Finstad presented a lively parade of product tests, safety alerts and money advice. CBC Digital Archives presents full episodes from 1974 and 1975, a period when Marketplace regularly drew over 1.7 million weekly viewers.

Among the Corolla, Datsun, Pinto and Vega, which subcompact car performs best?
In an era of escalating gas prices, all four are energy-efficient, but this 1974
episode of Marketplace sets out to learn which one is safest. Also in
this episode, Nova Scotia pioneers another affordable housing option: co-op
building, in which a group works together to build houses for all members. Other
segments address suspicious spinach labels and the many pluses of getting around
on foot.

• This episode of Marketplace aired years before revelations that a
serious design flaw in the Ford Pinto made it a potential deathtrap. Lacking a
rear bumper but with a fuel tank very near the back, the Pinto was prone to
bursting into flame in a rear-end collision. Worse, the frame could buckle so
that the doors were impossible to open, consigning occupants to an agonizing
death.

• In 1977 a leaked memo revealed that in 1971 Ford had done a cost-benefit
analysis to decide whether to spend $11 per Pinto to remedy the problem. It
concluded that it would be less costly to settle lawsuits resulting from deaths
and injuries caused by the flaw than to fix it.

• The Pinto was manufactured in St. Thomas, Ont., and in California. Because
Ontario had stricter standards for mitigating the damage from rear-end
collisions, a 1977 exposé in Mother Jones magazine suggested Pintos
made in Ontario were safer.

• Under pressure by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Ford
recalled 1.5 million Pintos in 1978.